Gladyss of the Hunt (21 page)

“Sure. But I need to know what we're going to catch?” He had to say
Blowjob for one fifty
in order for us to make an arrest.

“Did the lady at the service tell you—”

“She didn't tell me a thing,” I interrupted. “She just sent me here. I'm not one of the house girls. I make my own deals and take cash, so . . .”

“I understand,” he said tensely. He slowly took out his wallet and
politely said, “Allow me to make a small donation toward your education.” He counted out seven twenties. That was progress—he had offered me money. But I still needed to hear some reference to sex.

“Look,” I said, “I'll go out with you, but you got to tell me exactly what you want.”

“I just want to talk about good times.”

“Then you want a blow job? 'Cause I give great, sloppy blow jobs.”

“No, I just . . .”

“You want your balls licked?”

“Please, stop!”

“Hold it!” I held up my hands in frustration. “Do you know what I do for a living? I'm a working girl.”

“Of course,” he replied, holding out the twenties. I didn't touch them.

“We're not communicating here,” I said, grabbing his sleeve. “Repeat after me:
Put my dick in your
. . .”

“Let go of me!”

When he pushed me away. I should've just let him go, but the longer he kept me there, the more likely it seemed that he was the killer and I was being lured into some kind of trap. I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. I was afraid the adhesive holding my wire in place was going to fail and it would slip off.

“Just say you want sexual gratification,” I stated, which was clear entrapment. When he stood up, I was so full of fear that I seized his arm. Nervously he tried to push me from him.

“Relax,” I said tensely, still holding on. But he panicked and pulled away, inadvertently smacking my cheek and squealing, “LET GO OF ME!”

“Fuck!” I yelled in shock. He shrieked.

Suddenly we were in hyperspace. The door flew open and Alex and Annie had the old guy on the bed, face down, his hands cuffed behind his back. Bernie read him his rights, then looked through the guy's wallet. I guess he was looking for the stolen credit card, but he only found one card, which he held up.

“Thaddeus J. Tinkerman,” Bernie read, adding, “You know your credit card is invalid.”

“I was going to pay in cash. I swear it!” Tinkerman said, as though
they were working for Mastercard or Visa.

Bernie inspected his other ID and announced: “Our friend here is a veterinarian from Buffalo Mop, Texas.”

The old guy didn't respond. He just sat there looking sincerely ashamed.

“You okay?” Annie asked me quietly. I didn't mention the slap.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Actually, he was the one who yelled.”

“What happened?” Alex asked.

Still whispering, I confessed, “I got nervous and pushed him too hard.”

I took Bernie aside and asked him what he was going to do.

“We'll check him for warrants and prints. If he comes up blank, we'll just write him a summons.”

On our way out Bernie thanked the hotel manager and returned the passcard. We squeezed the old gent him into the backseat and headed back to the station.

“So you got a thing for Kim Novak, do you?” Bernie yelled over the blaring siren. Mr. Tinkerman didn't utter a word.

“She was the Scarlett Johansson of his day,” Annie said, and they both chuckled. I looked in the rear view and saw Tinkerman staring despondently out the window.

We returned to the precinct where he was interrogated. It wasn't until he was alone with Bernie that the old guy opened up. Evidently he was embarrassed to talk in front of the gentler sex. I watched through the one-way as he explained that he no longer had sexual urges. Fifty-six years ago he had married a young girl. Her parents annulled the marriage and took her away, and soon after she died of pneumonia. But even though she'd been dead for over half a century and he had remarried more than forty years ago, he still needed to speak to her from time to time.

“One's first love is always the strongest,” he said. And unfortunately for him, she happened to be a big blonde.

Apparently when the ache to see her got too bad, the old veterinarian would reincarnate her for a few minutes in the form of a hooker. He had no priors. He had only arrived in town that morning to attend a convention.

When I finally finished filling out a half a dozen forms and reports, I found myself walking out of the precinct at the same exact
time as our geriatric john.

“Mr. Tinkerman,” I began awkwardly. “I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but we have a killer who's going after the type of girl that you asked for.”

He didn't reply.

“I just want you to rest assured that no one will know about this.” I was referring to his wife.

“Wait until you reach my age, my dear, when young surrogates like yourself are the closest you can get to those you lost so long ago, leaving so much unfinished.”

“Nothing personal, but if I ever reach that point, I'll use my pistol to make my own happy ending.”

I knew it wasn't kind, but the man had freaked me out. I had been expecting him to jab a syringe into my neck at any moment. And even though the suspense was over, I kept replaying the anxiety of those few minutes as I walked home. I kept thinking about how I had panicked and grabbed his wrist—to keep his hands off of my throat.

By the time I reached Twenty-third Street, I found myself breathing deeply. I finally reached my front door at the same time as a lady who looked quite a lot like Maggie, except this woman had canary yellow hair and wore tight black spandex.

“What the hell is this?” I said, when I realized it was in fact my crazy neighbor.

“I just landed this three-week role on the soap opera
Siblings and Spouses
. I play an arty bisexual type, and since it might be my last big shot, I figured I'd try to become the character in advance.”

In the elevator, I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She rambled on electrically about her first work day, and told me that tomorrow she was scheduled to do a big on-air kiss with another woman.

When I opened my door, she followed me inside uninvited. While I was putting down my things, I realized my cell phone had been turned off the whole day. Since Maggie was rambling on, looking this way and that, I headed into the kitchen and listened to my three messages.

They were all from Noel Holden. The first was asking me where I was for our second date, apparently forgetting that I had already turned him down. “I'm outside your place,” he said, “and I'm trying
to remember the last time I got stood up.”

“Oh fuck!” I exclaimed, reducing Maggie to silence.

In the second message he was calling from the premiere: “Gladyss, I wanted to introduce you to Julia Roberts. She's such a sweetheart.” I could hear a bunch of people squawking in the background.

“What's the matter?” Maggie asked.

Absentmindedly I told her that I had missed a date with Noel Holden.

“You're kidding! Where is he?”

I focused on the third message, which had only just been recorded. “At a party at the Cavalier Club, wherever the hell that is.”

“You should go!”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. It's early. You can still make it.”

After the pointless hotel sting that day, and feeling so knotted and tense I couldn't even face yoga, the idea of being out with a movie star at a glamorous party suddenly sounded wonderful.

“What the hell,” I said, and called his cell. It went straight to voice mail.

“Just go there,” Maggie prompted.

“I don't even know where it is.”

“The Cavalier Club is near Fulton. On the South Street Seaport,” Maggie said. She made it her business to know the location of every major club as well as all the premiere and post-screening parties in New York City. It was as if her fabulous life was always elsewhere but had forgotten to invite her along.

When she left, I exchanged my sweaty shirt for a newer, nicer one, perfumed myself, then dashed downstairs and hopped a cab down to the South Street Seaport.

A 'roid-abusing doorman wearing a black velvet sports jacket over a white cotton tee stretched out by bulging muscles, blocked my entrance. When I explained that I had a date with Noel Holden, the four-hundred-pound ape shook his head. “Unless you have an invite, you ain't going in.” So I opened my wallet and flashed my shield, which he showed to another doorman before he let me pass.

The Cavalier Club was designed in a shiny hi-tech style. Everything was new and glossy. A large cardboard standee showed Julia Roberts in a cute beret holding a crepe suzette in front of the Eiffel Tower.
At the bottom was the tag line,
If you're pretending to speak French, you'd better not slip
. . .

Most of the glamorous guests and the paparazzi crud were gone. Busboys were clearing the buffet tables. But one last gasp of partygoers had rallied at the end of the bar, where they were still drinking and laughing it up.

“Darling!” a voice shot out.

It was as though a spotlight were focused on Noel Holden's extremely angular face. For the first time he truly looked magnetic, made of steel. He raced through all the little people and gave me a big hug.

“I can't believe you actually made it! I just realized I forgot to mention where the club was.”

“Maggie told me.”

“I waited for you. It broke my heart that you weren't there.”

“How'd it go?”

“Oh, same old crap. Tell me about your day.”

“Well, we finally made an arrest . . . but it turned out to be the wrong guy.”

“No one got shot or anything?”

“Actually I got slapped, but I'm fine.”

“Oh God! Where?”

I pointed to my cheek. Noel looked closely at it, then planted a sharp yet delicate kiss on the injury. At that moment, I wished I had pointed to my lips.

“What are you drinking?”

I looked up and saw the dog-faced director.

“A light beer would be great.”

When Crispin turned to wave toward the bartender, Noel told me he'd got some good news. His agent had just messengered a script to him. He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was entitled,
Flat on My Back
.

“It's a romantic comedy with Angelina Jolie—and it's not awful.”

“That's wonderful.”

“What's wonderful is the two million dollar paycheck.”

Instead of thinking that he was being paid more for one film that might take two months of his time than I would earn in my entire working life, all I could think—despite myself—was that Angelina
Jolie was gorgeous—and single.

Crispin handed me a tall, frosted pint of beer and a Bushmills chaser.

“We're having a chugging contest,” he said, dropping the short glass into the frosty mug and sending beer splashing over the sides. “Officer, if you can down this in one go, I'll confess to any crime you want.”

“Crispin! What does she look like, some fat frat boy?” Noel rebuked him.

“Just to show that a woman can hold her own with the men,” I answered, bringing the tall glass to my lips. I had to use yogic breath control to chug the beer down to its frothy depths, but I did it. Then I let out a long, unladylike belch. Crispin and a group of male spectators applauded and pounded on the oak bar.

“Another!” one of them called out.

“Another! Another! Another!” the guys at the bar all joined in.

Before I could reply, Noel grabbed my arm and led me outside. As we climbed into his waiting Lincoln, Noel told the driver we'd be heading first to my apartment and then to his. Perhaps because of his stated itinerary– which precluded even the possibility of seduction—I felt a little bolder than usual. As the car pulled out, I mentioned to Noel that the river view was romantic this time of year.

“Driver,” he called out. “Let's go south along the FDR and up around the West Side Highway. We need to see the river.”

Wordlessly, the driver complied.

After several back and forth moves, I found Noel Holden holding, kissing, and caressing me. In what seemed like seconds, the car halted in front of my house. We continued kissing, while the driver just sat silently, staring dead ahead.

“God, you're good,” I said, finally coming up for air.

“You're not half bad yourself.”

For the first time I felt I was looking at him through Maggie's eyes. Without even knowing it I asked, “Would you like to come up?”

“Not tonight,” he replied with a sigh.